A horrible ship accident - The Salvage of the M/V Rocknes

Описание: A horrible ship accident - The Salvage of the M/V Rocknes

SMIT Salvage completed a series of major salvage operations in the first half of this year, with the work programme including salvage and pollution prevention with the tanker Everton , the righting of the capsized fallpipe vessel Rocknes and the expected completion of salvage operations for the car carrier Tricolor .

The final phase of one of the largest wreck removals of recent years was drawing to a close in the North Sea during the summer with a project team clearing the site of the wreck of the vehicle carrier Tricolor , which was lost in December 2002 following a collision with the container vessel Kariba . Work last year saw the cutting of the wreck into nine sections. Five of the nine were lifted and taken to a Zeebrugge scrapping facility before the work ceased in November with the arrival of the winter season.
Work on the Tricolor site resumed in mid-May and the project consortium (SMIT, Scaldis, URS and Multraship) expect to complete the clearance of seabed before the onset of the winter season.

A SMIT Salvage team completed a major pollution prevention operation off the Omani coast when the laden tanker Everton caught fire after a collision involving a large Taiwanese fishing vessel. The team, working with the Omani Coastguard and naval units, extinguished the fires within 48 hours of the collision, completed temporary repairs and readied the vessel for a ship-to-ship transfer of her cargo.

A 13m gash in the tanker's side was patched in just 12 hours.

Over 80,000 tonnes of crude oil was transferred to a lightering tanker. There was minimal loss of oil as a result of the collision and there was no pollution during the cargo transfer. A major feature of this operation was the positive working relationship with the Omani authorities, a major factor in the successful efforts to prevent contamination of the coastline.

The large salvage tug SMITWijs London subsequently towed Everton to drydock at Fujairah.

Other landmarks in the SMIT record this year include the successful parbuckling of the capsized Rocknes at Agotnes, Norway, following a tragic accident that cost 18 lives. SMIT Salvage was awarded a LOF/SCOPIC contract for the recovery of the vessel. This was a major operation requiring the diving support/salvage vessel SMIT Orca and a flat-top semisubmersible barge carrying two pontoons acting as stations for pulling winches. A heavy lift crane barge was held on standby during the parbuckling.

In the event, this extra power to induce rotation proved unnecessary. Eide Marine Services participated in this operation as a subcontractor.